


Five Winters That Bucky Barnes Lived Through

by dirty_diana



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: 5 Things, Multi, Nostalgia, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirty_diana/pseuds/dirty_diana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five winters that the Winter Soldier made it through. Bucky/Steve and Bucky/Natasha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Winters That Bucky Barnes Lived Through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceroate (cero_ate)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cero_ate/gifts).



> much thanks for the speedy beta to lilacsigil.
> 
> Written for ceroate

 

 

**December, 1940**

The new recruits aren't used to the cold. They trade cigarettes for their Army-issue blankets, and stamp their feet whenever they enter the barracks, to warm their toes.

Bucky has lived on this base for three years. It's a trade-up from Fort Drum at wintertime, anyhow, where they rationed the hot water like they rationed the potatoes. Showers were always cold. Snow on the roof didn't help.

Here, it's not that bad. Winters bring mostly rain, and the ground turns to a thick, black mud where the recruits practice drills. Bucky watches them under the cover of a doorway, thin-limbed pansies huffing labored breaths. The drill sergeant yells, but it doesn't make them run any faster.

Bucky turns away from the wind for a moment, to light a stolen cigarette. He's fifteen now, and small for his age still, but faster than most of the losers out there in the mud. His hands are already starting to grow hard and callused, from throwing punches.

The general has promised him a real soldier's training. In the spring. Give him something to hit other than the other officers' kids. Which is fine by Bucky.

They think he's angry because his father's gone. They think he fights because he's alone now, and there's no one to teach him any better. Bucky lets them think that. Gets him fewer punishments.

He fights because he likes it.

He figures it will be his last winter on this base, at any rate. Bucky's good at eavesdropping, and he hears the generals talking. They'll be at war, any day now, and when that happens Bucky intends to sign up. They'll tell him no at first, probably. But they usually do.

**December, 1943**

"So are we gonna stay here all night?" Bucky asked, finally.

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his brown dress uniform, staring beneath his furrowed brow out at the crowded dance floor. The band played an up-tempo song, and the girls' were spun by their partners in a flurry of swirling skirts. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Means it's a dance, Steve. You're supposed to find a partner and dance."

"I know," Steve answered, unconvincingly. His foot tapped distractedly to the rhythm of the drums. "It's just different."

"Different?"

"From last Christmas."

Bucky tilted his head curiously, and gave Steve half a smile. "Yeah? Doesn't have to be."

*

They spent last Christmas on the front. One of the French soldiers passed around a bottle of whiskey, and by the time Bucky stumbled to the Invaders' tent, he was maybe a little drunk.

Steve was alone, reading telegrams and war maps, muttering to himself. Bucky sat down heavily beside him, pushing the papers away and nudging him gently with one shoulder.

"You gotta be kidding me, Steve. It's Christmas."

"I know," Steve told him quietly, turning his mouth to Bucky's ear. "Just doesn't seem like there's much to celebrate."

Bucky nodded. They'd lost a lot of men, between this Christmas and the last. A lot of good men. Some of them, friends. "Yeah. I wouldn't call it celebrating, exactly. More being grateful."

"That's a different holiday." Steve picked up one of his papers, looking distracted again. "What are you grateful for?"

That was the first time Bucky ever kissed him. He was seventeen then, his lithe fighting form backed up by greater weight. He struck quickly, sliding one hand behind the back of Steve's strong neck and leaning forward, his wet mouth touching Steve's lips and holding.

Steve pulled back. But not right away. "You're drunk, soldier."

"Sure am," Bucky agreed. Kissed him again, his mouth brushing the sharp, blond stubble of Steve's jaw, before stumbling to his bedroll, and falling asleep.

*

Steve is blushing. "I didn't think that you remembered that."

Buck can't help smiling, at the sight of Steve trying to make his massive frame disappear into the wall. "No," he said gently. "I remembered. I just reckoned it would be easier if you thought I didn't remember. So..." Bucky leaves off trying to explain, and shrugs.

Steve scratches the back of his neck, thinking. "Easier on me."

"Got it in one."

"Well, that's not, I mean...you didn't have to."

Bucky grins, and slaps his fingers against the solid shoulder of Steve's uniform. "Stop trying to talk, Steve. You're killing me."

*

They give up on the dance, and shuffle into their trench coats and go for a walk. Inside, the band plays on. Outside, the rain has started again, and couples scramble for shelter and hold each other close. Bucky smiles at the sight. 

Instinctively their steps match rhythm and speed. Steve, being taller, gets to hold the umbrella, and Bucky's right hand rests unconsciously by the buttons of his uniform.

Steve glances at him. "You brought your weapon to a Christmas dance?"

Bucky shrugs. There's holidays, and there's habits that are hard to break. "Yeah."

"You thought one of the ladies in there might be a Nazi spy?" Steve's not done teasing. "Which one? The blonde? Or the redhead Toro was staring at all night?"

"Shut up." Bucky isn't as easily embarrassed as Steve is, but he knows when he's caught.

"You weren't really planning to dance tonight."

They cross a bridge, and Steve stops, staring into the black depths of the river. Bucky shakes his head. Steve is a meathead, sometimes.

"Course not, partner," he answered, gently. "Someone's got to keep an eye on you."

Steve nods. Doesn't argue. Tomorrow it will be the war again. They'll be in Germany by New Year's Day, and Bucky might not know what is coming but he knows he will have Steve with him, on his right. Like always. 

"Merry Christmas."

**December, 1978**

First, blood.

Then once again into darkness.

Then Natalia, arrived from St. Petersburg in her black uniform, with her orders in hand. 

He knows from the files that she is not the first of the Black Widows. Not even the first one that he has trained, though he doesn't remember this. The Winter Soldier is used to gaps of missing time. He thinks nothing of it. Only wonders if the others were as pretty as this one.

Useful. From purely a mission standpoint.

There is nothing but the mission. The general has made him that way. The mission, and after that, darkness.

*

She says something to him, and he responds with a quick, closed fist. With his flesh hand, nothing close to combat strength. She sees it coming, but doesn't get out of the way fast enough. It's enough to knock her a few steps back.

Fine. They have a lot of work to do.

"English," he says sharply. "When they send you to America, will you speak Russian there?"

She smiles in response. She reminds him of someone, he thinks, but he doesn't know who. The image - dark eyes, a sharp tongue - is gone before he has time to will it to stay.

*

They fight.

She is good. Not good enough, but she will be. She compensates, as the Widows all do, with her eyes. With her smile, and with her body. By finding ways to be too close. Ways to ask him questions about things he shouldn't remember.

He wants to kiss her. His body does. His brain has other orders. 

When he searches the broken shards of his memory, he can find nothing resembling this. Nothing like a woman. Even if he didn't know this, his body when he stands too close lets him know, with burning certainty. It has been a long, long time.

There is a saying on the base. If you let a Black Widow in through the door, she will bite you. 

The Winter Soldier has racked up too many kills to be scared of a little red-haired spider.

That's what he tells himself.

*

It is winter in Russia. It is always winter in Russia. The seasons mean very little to him, in any case. Only wind by which to gauge the flight of a bullet. Mud in which to cover his tracks.

This is the first winter that he remembers being lonely.

Outside his quarters, the wind howls. Inside, Natalia's warm fingers loosen the buttons on his shirt.

First, blood. Then sleep.

**December, 2008**

"Hi, Steve."

Bucky wears his civvies, leather jacket and jeans. He doesn't wear the suit. It doesn't matter that it's his own uniform, made for him, and not Steve's old uniform at all. The light weight of the holster against his thigh proves that, if nothing else. Stark tells him that Steve isn't even buried here. But that doesn't matter either.

Maybe Bucky is the only person that could have carried the shield. But that doesn't change the fact that he may never get used to it.

The snow is coming down now over Arlington. Bucky can't remember what he came here to say.

"Hi, James."

Natalia. He'd heard her coming, her light footsteps on the frozen ground. "How'd you find me?"

She murmurs something in Russian that he doesn't catch, and then adds, "Lucky guess."

Yeah.

Seems like the more winters he lives through, the more people he gets to mourn. The more debt he racks up that can never be paid back.

She is shivering. He takes her hand, and presses his gloved palm against cold, bare fingers. 

"If you want to be alone," she says, "I can..."

He did. Doesn't anymore. 

"Stay," he tells her, and she does.

Others have been here. They left Christmas wreaths that ring around the gravestone. It's hard, sometimes, to remember he's not the only one that Steve left behind. Steve left a whole world behind. A whole world to take care of, with just two hands and one shield.

"I don't know how you did it," Bucky says aloud.

Natalia puts her head on his shoulder.

*end.

 


End file.
